CONCORDIA, Kan. – Cruising to a 34-point halftime lead, the Cloud County Community College men's basketball team would put on a show in their 2021-22 home opener as part of a 98-41 win over the Friends University JV team inside Arley Bryant Gymnasium on Wednesday, November 3rd.
 
Improving to 1-1 on the year, Cloud County was able to give first-year head coach Devin Kastrup his first win with the Thunderbirds as the Falcons drop their second game in three days to a Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference foe to fall to 0-2.
 
"I told our guys after the game that this is college basketball and winning is incredibly hard so any win we can get we need to celebrate and enjoy because you don't know when the next one will come" said Cloud County head men's basketball coach Devin Kastrup. "I thought we did a good job of getting some rhythm and get some experience playing together as we were able to play a lot of players tonight so hopefully this will help later on in the year." "We had some guys who shoot the ball well that had an off night tonight, but our biggest thing is to get good shots and despite not having an efficient night we were getting a lot of open shots." "As long as our guys continue doing what they can do well, we should eventually see those things average out and good things will happen." "At the end of the day, defense is going to have to be our calling card as we know from film that if we don't guard well then we won't be successful in our conference." "We still have some work to do with our communication and coverages moving forward, but as long as we continue to improve I believe that things will fall into place."
 
Trailing for a total of 31 seconds in the contest, CCCC would get out to an 11-3 lead in the opening four minutes of action thanks in part to the duo of Justin Graham and Joe Kearney accounting for nine of the 11 points. Kearney would then give Cloud County their first double-digit lead of the contest at 13-3 with 15:26 left in the first half as the lead would quickly grow to 18 on a Radovan Vidovic layup and free throw three minutes later.
 
The T-Bird lead would reach the 20-point mark at 30-10 with 8:55 left in the opening period on a driving layup by Corey Sawyer Jr. as Cloud County would make it a point to drive the lane and crash the boards on any missed shot. Things would continue to be all CCCC for the remainder of the first half as the Falcons would be held to just 13 points in the first 15 minutes of action before scoring eight in the final 4:08 of the half. An 8-2 Cloud County run would put a cap on an electrifying opening period as Sawyer would hit his second three in three trips down the court to record 12 first-half points and make things a 55-21 lead at the break.
 
Not much would change in the second half as the T-Birds would continue to find open shots and hit from all over the court to extend their lead to 62-22 just over three and a half minutes in the half. Defense would continue to shine for CCCC on the other end of the court as Friends JV would be held to just six points in the opening nine minutes of the second half while being unable to match a 43-point second-half output from Cloud County as the T-Birds would outscore the Falcons 43-20 in the period.
 
As a team, Cloud County would shoot 47.5 percent (38-of-80) from the field and connect on 12 of 17 (70.6 percent) of their free-throw attempts while holding Friends JV to a 13 of 53 (24.5 percent) effort from the field. The T-Birds would manage to outscore the Falcons 28-7 in second-chance points and 52-18 in points in the paint while allowing just 21 points in the first half and 20 in the second half.
 
Leading all players on the night would be Sawyer Jr. with 20 points and six rebounds while Vidovic would just miss out on his first collegiate double-double by finishing with eight points and a game-best 12 rebounds. Malang Athian (12) and Graham (11) would join Sawyer Jr. to give CCCC three players in double figures on the night.
 
What's Next?  
Cloud County is back in action on Saturday, November 6th with a 4 p.m. home game against Hesston College who will be entering the contest playing their third contest in three days. After opening the season on Tuesday night with a 95-78 home win over the Bethel College JV team, Hesston will host the Ottawa University JV team Thursday and the Central Christian College JV team on Friday before playing their first road game of the year in Concordia.